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Pio
Monte della Misericordia: Church and Art
Gallery
 In 1601, driven by
the charitable aspirations of the Counter
Reformation, seven Neapolitan gentlemen founded a
quasi-secular organization dedicated to taking care of
the needy in Naples. Their original idea was to raise
enough money to support a number of beds (places) in the
Hospice for the Incurable.
An early site for the organization was built almost
immediately, but by mid-century the organization
expanded into the premises that one sees today (photo),
on via Tribunale, one block from a side entrance of the
Naples Cathedral.
The building is the work of architect Francesco Antonio Picchiatti
and was completed in 1670. It is directly across the
street from the small square, Piazza Sisto Riario
Sforza, in the center of which stands the oldest of the
three well-known "spires of Naples", the 24-meter high
Spire of San Gennaro, erected in 1636 and the work
Cosimo Fanzago. (The other two spires are at Piazza San
Domenico Maggiore and Piazza del Gesù Nuovo.)
The two-story building rests on a portico of five arches
and contains an art gallery on the first floor. The
building was purposely designed not to look like a
church, though it does contain one on the premises. That
interior church, too, is the work of Picchiatti and is
built to an octagonal plan with seven altars. It is best
known today, perhaps, for the presence of Caravaggio's spectacular and
complicated painting, The
Seven Acts of Mercy, one of the most
influential works of art in the 17th century in Naples.
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